CEO: Biofuels initiative 'plays into strong suit for Virent'

Lee Edwards, chief executive of Madison-based Virent, said the Obama administration's $510 million funding announcement for biobased jet fuel and diesel “good news for Virent and the advanced biofuels industry.”

The funding will help bring private sector investors off the sidelines and provide the winning firms an “opportunity to scale up sooner rather than later,” Edwards told me after this morning's Obama administration announcement.

“It’s good news for us,” he said. "It plays right into the strong suit of Virent.”

The reason, he said, is that the federal initiative is seeking to advance development of both jet fuel and diesel. “We do both,” Edwards said.

In addition, the agencies are also seeking a variety of feedstocks, and Virent has been able to develop fuels from both corn, corn stover and wood chips.

In the move to develop biorefineries at commercial scale, one of the challenges is to get private-sector support for the first such plant, given the uncertain direction of U.S. energy policy and given the volatility and uncertainty about oil price trends.

The fact that the military is signing on as a customer gives assurances that there will be demand for the jet fuel and diesel that a biorefinery would produce, he added.

It isn’t clear how many projects will be funded — or when funding will be announced, Edward said. But he added Virent has already positioned itself to be a technology the federal government likes, given separate announcements in June and Monday by the Department of Energy.

“I like our prospects,” Edwards said.

About Thomas Content

Thomas Content covers energy, clean technology and sustainable business. A series he co-wrote on energy and climate change won top honors in 2008 from the National Press Foundation.

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